


Niche in His Chest

by helloearthlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Compulsory Hetersexuality, Getting Together, High School, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 05:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16212245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: Jack notices these things, knows that the innocent way he’d get cooed over as a child as Lily glared at him overtop their coloring books was because he was the good-looking one, a charmer already at age five, won’t the ladies just love him. Lily sticks her tongue out. Jack sticks it out back. Lily’s the only one who gets in trouble.He knows that it gets less innocent over time. He knows that when he’s eleven and playing middle school football and there are eleven year-old girls in the stands with their parents, the girls will come up to him after the game and tell him he was good even though Jack sucks at football.It’s because he’s handsome. Handsome and charming.





	Niche in His Chest

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this isn't the project fic, this rounds out my holy triumvirate of internalized homophobia fics. None of them are like, in the same universe or anything, but veeeery similar to my Lily one and 'i'm bleeding, not just making conversation' for Sammy in terms themes. (Internalized homophobia.) 
> 
> Anyway, hope you like this one, and you'll likely get the start of my project tomorrow!

Jack’s known since he was a kid that he’s good-looking.

Handsome and charming, that’s what people call him. Handsome and charming, they cram those words together like they’re a natural combination, like there’s nothing else Jack could be. 

Jack notices these things, knows that the innocent way he’d get cooed over as a child as Lily glared at him overtop their coloring books was because he was the good-looking one, a charmer already at age five, won’t the ladies just love him. Lily sticks her tongue out. Jack sticks it out back. Lily’s the only one who gets in trouble. 

He knows that it gets less innocent over time. He knows that when he’s eleven and playing middle school football and there are eleven year-old girls in the stands with their parents, the girls will come up to him after the game and tell him he was good even though Jack sucks at football.

It’s because he’s handsome. Handsome and charming. 

His mom laughs when Cecily Livingston shyly asks Jack after the game if he wants to go get pizza sometime, and Jack stammers that he has to ask his mom first. She laughs and laughs, ruffles his hair, calls him a lady killer. Lily glares at him overtop her horn-rimmed glasses and thick textbook in the car on the way home.

The next time a girl asks him out - Cecily, at eleven, didn’t quite work out - he’s thirteen, Lizzy Ahmed asks him out after school when they’re sitting together on the bus. Lily,  from behind their seat, stifles a laugh that Jack can hear as Lizzy gazes at him with bright blue eyes expectantly.

Jack says yes without thinking about it. It’s what he’s supposed to do, right? He and Cecily had only hung out a couple times, but she was nice. Lizzy was probably nice, too. She was in his math class. 

When they get off at their stop, Lily swinging her backpack in front of her to put her book back inside, she says “You’re such a flirt.”

“What?” Jack asks. He knows what it means when a girl asks him out, knows that he’ll probably take her out for pizza and soda and maybe he’ll kiss her. He’s never kissed a girl before but he’s sure it’s not that bad. “No, I’m not.  _ She _ asked  _ me _ out.”

“Because you were flirting with her,” Lily rolls her eyes and starts walking faster. Jack struggles to catch up. He hopes he has a growth spurt soon, Lily is still too much taller than him. 

“I wasn’t!” Jack argues. “I don’t know how to flirt.”

Lily raises an eyebrow at him. “Dude. You flirt with girls  _ all  _ the time. Whenever they talk to you, really.”

“That’s just how I talk, then!” Jack argues. “It’s not... _ flirting _ .”

Lily snorts. “I don’t think Lizzy knows that.”

That’s when Jack learns that talking and flirting are the same thing, but only when it comes to girls. Jack thinks he talks to everyone about the same. But without any kind of change in how  _ he  _ acts, it becomes flirting when he’s talking to a girl.

He doesn’t mean to. He doesn’t  _ want  _ to. It just happens and Jack doesn’t mind when the girls laugh at him and tell him he’s funny and smart and really good on the football team. It’s not like he wants it to happen, but he’s not going to put a ton of effort into stopping it. He’s busy.

Still, he has to stop saying yes when girls ask him out. Because once he gets to high school, that starts to become more and more frequent. Jack still plays football, and basketball too. Girls start coming to games with posters with his jersey number. 

Jack likes football, figures everyone else does too, doesn’t think much of it. 

It’s only when Leon Smith elbows him after a game when Jack’s chugging from his water bottle and says “Hey, Rachel likes you. Like, she’s crazy about her. My girlfriend Jess said she never shuts up about you. Thinks you’re  _ sooo  _ pretty.”

Leon squirts Jack in the face with his own water bottle and while Jack laughs, he also feels something unfurling in the pit of his stomach, an awful kind of dread. He swallows that feeling, though, he knows how the guys on the team are supposed to act.

“She does?” Jack asks, shooting a look over at the cheerleaders. He finds Rachel almost immediately. She stands out in the crowd, dark hair swinging in a ponytail, sparkling a little with the glitter the girls put in their hair before the game. 

“You should totally ask her out,” Leon says. “I mean, homecoming’s coming up and all. You need a girl to wear your jersey.”

“I could just ask Lily,” Jack says, and Leon laughs, but it’s mean this time. Jack starts to feel sick.

“Your bitchy sister?” Leon snorts. “C’mon, Wright. You’re almost popular. You  _ would  _ be popular if you were Rachel’s boyfriend. Your sister  _ isn’t _ .”

Jack thinks about telling him to fuck off, but knows he can’t. Leon’s a senior, two years older than him, in Lily’s grade. Jack hasn’t even spent a season on the team yet, so he can’t tell Leon shit, not even to stop insulting his sister.

“Shut up,” Jack mutters half-heartedly under his breath, the bravest he’s willing to get. “I’ll ask Rachel out, okay?”

Leon claps his shoulder. “Nice, dude. Don’t sound so upset. She’s hot as hell, man.”

Hot. That’s something else that Jack learns he is when he asks Rachel out in homeroom and she giggles and twists her hair in her hand and says she’s been waiting for him to say something, that she could tell he liked her.

Jack doesn't know what the hell she’s talking about, since all he knew about her before this was that she was a cheerleader who had a higher social status than him, but he lets it happen. 

Rachel tells him when they’re making out in her car after class that he’s so fucking hot, and Jack doesn’t know what to say back, so he just kisses her again and tries to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach.

She wears his jersey for homecoming. She kisses him in front of a ton of people after the game, even though Jack was on the bench for most of it since he’s only a sophomore. He sees Lily out of the corner of his eye, sees her roll her eyes and go back to the book she brought along to the game. 

Jack doesn’t overthink it. He can’t. There’s a dance to get to. Rachel’s dress is short, scandalous even, bright blue. She’s wearing pink lipstick and a shit ton of mascara. Jack wouldn’t have noticed it if they didn’t have sex in her car afterwards, but he’s up close to her face.

Jack’s fifteen, never had sex before, especially not with a girl like Rachel. Pretty and popular and telling him how fucking hot he looks when he’s kissing her neck.

“You’re quiet, babe,” Rachel says when it’s over. She’s breathing heavily, and looks happier than he feels. “I mean, I know I just took your virginity, but…”

“It’s nothing,” Jack tells her, pushing himself up so they’re both sitting upright in the backseat. “Don’t worry about it. Should we get back before anyone misses us or -”

Rachel laughs. “Please. Half of the cheerleaders have brought their boyfriends out here. The other half don’t have parents home tonight.”

Jack laughs along with her. It’s funny. He knows it’s supposed to be funny. 

Two weeks later, Jack’s getting the homework from Mia in his biology class when Rachel storms up to him in the hall, saying “C’mon  _ babe _ , we have to get lunch.”

“What’s wrong?” Jack asks as Rachel practically drags him away.

“You were flirting with her!” Rachel hisses under her breath, all the while entangling her hand with Jack’s.

“I wasn’t,” Jack says, a little gobsmacked. “Rach, honest, we were just talking about the homework.”

“Ask one of the guys next time,” Rachel squeezes his hand a little too hard.

Jack’s forgotten that talking to girls means he’s flirting with him. He still doesn’t understand why, but knows that it’s true. He wonders if it’s like that for everyone, or if it’s just him.

“It’s just you,” Lily says when Jack tries to bring up the subject with her when Lily’s driving them home from school. “They’re projecting. They want you to be flirting, so you are. It doesn’t help that you charm everyone you’ve ever met. It’s fucking annoying.”

“I don’t try to,” Jack tries to explain, feeling lost, and Lily just sighs.

“I know,” she reaches over to pat his shoulder, a weird display of physical affection from his standoffish sister. “That’s why I can’t even be mad at you for it.”

She grimaces at him, and Jack grimaces back. At least she seems to get it, why this is such an unfortunate thing. He doesn’t think many people would. He barely gets it himself.

Rachel breaks up with him in the spring, because an older guy asked her to prom. Jack’s not heartbroken over it or anything, even if half the girls in his year seem to be checking on him to make sure he’s okay.

He decides over the summer that he’s not gonna talk to girls anymore if he can help it, that he’ll just hang with the guys on the football team, or with the guys on the student newspaper that Jack helps to write.

He thinks that will make things better.

It makes things worse.

Being  _ one of the guys _ , a member of that exclusive club, is suffocating. There’s so many unwritten rules that Jack has to keep track of in his head, none of which come naturally to him. Rules about, jokes, conversations, touching, laughing, hanging out, everything. There isn’t anything that doesn’t have a set of rules attached.

Jack knows the most important rule though. He knows that when he talks to guys, it isn’t flirting. Can’t be flirting. If it is, someone will notice, and tell him not so politely that he’s broken a rule, and the penalty for breaking that rule is a steep one. 

Jack makes it through high school without another serious girlfriend. A few dates here and there, because the girls still ask and Jack can’t always say no, because there’s a rule about that, too. 

The rules don’t come naturally, but Jack’s always been a fast learner. 

He doesn’t really understand that he’s allowed to break the rules until well after he graduates high school - after winning Prom King, hating all the eyes on him, and spending prom night with the queen, a girl from his chemistry class with red hair, the only thing Jack can still remember about is her - when he’s moved halfway across the country for college. 

Jack’s trying to articulate, in a state of not quite sobriety, about The Rules.

“It’s not even like, the bro code or what have you,” Jack says, head lolling back on his worn out sofa. This is his first apartment. It’s obviously not really his, it’s just student housing, he shares with three other guys, but it’s more his than his house felt the last couple years of high school. “Because it’s not like you’re even friends like - like real friends, like you and me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sammy almost knocks his beer can against Jack’s face as he gestures too emphatically. “Like. You have to play along just to - just to get to  _ exist _ .”

“Exactly,” Jack declares, taking a long swig of his own beer. “You have to. You know. Be a man, be tough, don’t be a pussy. Be a dick to girls, except sometimes the hot ones. Brag about the ones you screw in the locker room. It’s gross. So gross. Makes me sick.”

“Glad I never had to deal with the locker room too much,” Sammy hiccups, kicking at Jack’s leg and missing. Sammy never misses an opportunity to rib him about football. Jack doesn’t even play anymore, their college has a rugby team that he likes much more. 

“It sucks,” Jack says, too honest and raw. “It sucks - so much.”

“It’s just - just high school shit, man,” Sammy says, forehead creasing, leaning in slightly. Jack’s drunk, but he immediately notices that they’re the only two people home. “We’re not like that.”

“We’re not,” Jack says, and it makes him smile before he remembers that feeling happy about that is definitely breaking a rule.

But he’ll break it to see Sammy grin at him like that. Sammy’s his first real friend, one he can talk through this kind of shit with. He’s the only one who gets it other than maybe Lily, and Lily’s college is thousands of miles away on the east coast. Sammy’s here and real and laughing with him.

“Glad we’re in journalism and not the business school,” Sammy giggles as he drinks again. “Those fuckers and their pressed suits when they walk to class are just as disgusting. They’ve got some fucking rules.” 

“Don’t talk about them,” Jack fake-shudders, and Sammy’s laugh is wide and open. 

Jack doesn’t have a girlfriend in college. Paul always has a new girl over, and Carson’s long distance with his high school girlfriend. But Sammy doesn’t have a girlfriend either, which makes something tighten in Jack’s chest cavity.

It’s fine with Jack that he doesn’t have a girlfriend. He doesn’t want a girlfriend. He feels lightheaded when he thinks about having a girlfriend. Sometimes a girl will still ask him out here or there, especially once he turns twenty-one and starts going to bars and clubs, but Jack doesn’t really like bars and clubs anyway. Sammy hates them, so he doesn’t go much. What bothers him most is being asked to dance.

He’s twenty-two and freshly graduated before Lily takes him to the right kind of club, back in California. San Francisco. Lily lives adjacent to the Castro, and they go out, and someone asks Jack to dance and he doesn’t say no and he likes dancing with him.

He can’t do it again when he gets to Chicago though, to the apartment Sammy found for them to sublet on a Craigslist listing. They’re getting a good deal or else they wouldn’t get to live so close to the city. 

Jack can’t do that kind of thing again, here, when he’s just starting a career, when anything could make or break what his new boss thinks of him. What a potential  _ audience  _ could think of him, if Jack ever manages to get in front of an audience.

He feels guilty every time Sammy looks at him. 

He can’t put Sammy’s career on the line like that too, when they’ve already decided that they’re going to be broadcast partners, that they’re a package deal at the station that’s hired them both on a temp basis. That temp basis needs to become a real thing, and Jack’s -

Jack’s not risking it.

He’s twenty-four before he goes back to a club, and it’s after Lily’s moved to Chicago and Jack’s more than established at a station. A different one than the one they started at, but one where Jack’s in charge of producing a real show for the first time, a show with the two people who mean the most to him. 

But Lily, as much as Jack likes having her around, is always pushing him outside his comfort zone, and he doesn’t quite realize her plan until she gets to his apartment Saturday night. 

“It’s called the Closet,” Lily says gleefully as she comes in the door decked out in a tightly fitted dress. Lily doesn’t do that much, especially not when going to a place often frequented by straight guys. Which they’re not doing tonight. “Perfect for you two, right?”

“Uh,” Sammy says from behind Jack, and something painful creases in Jack’s chest. “What?”

“Shut up, Lily,” Jack says without looking behind him.

“Proving my point,” Lily says, smirking, her gaze more directed at Sammy than Jack, which makes something tighten in Jack’s stomach. “You coming or not, Stevens?”

Jack can’t even turn around, just silently begs whoever’s listening for Sammy to say he’s staying in tonight - Sammy hates bars and clubs, he hates going out, he hates going out with Lily especially because Lily always gets them wasted, Sammy hates - 

“Sure,” Sammy says, very slow, and Jack can’t turn around then, either.

Lily drives, Jack sits in the front, doesn’t look behind him. They get to the club, Lily finds a girl in approximately two minutes, and Sammy and Jack stand together awkwardly near the bar and don't make eye contact.

A guy with a nose ring makes eye contact with Jack across the room, comes closer. 

“Wanna dance?” The guy asks when he’s close enough for Jack to hear him, and Jack hesitates, but says yes. He dances with the guy, presses close, doesn’t look to see if Sammy’s watching.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” the guy says later, in the bathroom, laughing as Jack rests his forehead against the guy’s shoulder. 

Jack still doesn’t understand it, but it’s more bearable coming out of his mouth than anyone else who’s whispered that to him. It’s not the person who he wants to say something like that to him, but it’s getting close enough that he doesn’t feel a gaping hole in his chest when he thinks about how far away he is from who he wishes he was.

Sammy doesn’t come home that night, causing some panic from Jack in the moment, but things seem to be normal the next day. Lily raises eyebrows smugly at Sammy at work on Monday, but Sammy doesn’t make eye contact with her. 

It’s another year before Jack goes on a date, like a real one. Well, sort of. He’s going to dinner with a guy he’s been hooking up with, after the guy asked if he wanted to take things more seriously. Jack doesn’t really know if he does, he feels tight and nervous and cold all over when he thinks about it, but he should at least try. 

“Why are you nervous?” Sammy asks Jack as Jack paces a hole in their kitchen. Jack hasn’t said anything specifically, but Sammy’s met the guy more than once, has a general idea of what’s going on, which is more than Jack can say about what he knows about Sammy’s love life. Sammy doesn’t bring anyone home as far as Jack knows. “I mean - you’re you.”

“What does that mean?” Jack’s so out of his mind that he asks that kind of stupid question, and Sammy blushes. 

“Well, you know,” Sammy says. "You're ...you're attractive, and likable...”

Jack can’t decide how he feels - sick or happy. Mostly sick, probably. It’s not Sammy’s fault though, and Jack tries to smile at him.

“I don’t know why people think that,” Jack says. “I’m - I mean, I know I’m alright-looking.”

“Jack,” Sammy won’t meet his eye, Jack notices, he’s looking at his ear. “Seriously? You’re - I mean - have you  _ seen  _ you? _ I’m _ alright-looking, you’re…”

He gestures wordlessly at Jack and Jack presses him.

“I’m what?” Jack asks. “All my life, I’ve been handsome and charming and such a flirt…”

Sammy laughs. “Handsome and charming, but not a flirt. You never flirt.”

Jack blinks at him. “Really?”

“You’re just nice,” Sammy says like it’s obvious. “If people think it’s flirting, that’s their problem. You’re just sweet, and actually listen to what people have to say.”

“I - I -  _ thanks _ ,” Jack says, knowing that it’s too heartfelt of a thank you for something so inane, but he feels like something’s taken all the air out of him. No one’s ever said that before, made him feel understood like that,  _ seen _ . “Jesus, Sammy, you have no idea how often I have to explain that to people.”

“I’ve known you for years, Jack, I think I’ve got you figured out by now,” Sammy’s looking at the ground now. “You have no reason to be nervous, okay? Josh likes you, I can tell.”

“Oh,” Jack says, remembering a second too late that he’s meant to be leaving for a date. With...Josh. Right. Yeah. That’s happening. “I - I guess.”

Jack waits a second, then says “I don’t know if I like him. Like, really like him. You know? I just - I mean - I’ve never done this, I should really -”

“Again, you’ve got it wrong,” Sammy says, he’s biting his lip.  _ “I’m  _ the one who’s never done this. You’re trying, Jack. That’s...brave as hell. I couldn’t...couldn’t do it.”

“I can’t do it either,” Jack says, becoming more sure by the second. “I - God, I’m gonna call and cancel.”

“No, you’re not,” Sammy stops Jack with an arm on his shoulder as Jack tries to leave the kitchen. Jack looks down at Sammy’s hand, gripping his shoulder. Sammy’s looking at it, too. They’re both still for a second.

“Jack,” Sammy says quietly, voice carefully controlled, not quite looking at him. “No matter what you say to the contrary, you’re charming. You’re handsome. You're ...wonderful. Everything’s gonna be fine.” 

“I guess if  _ you’re _ telling me I’m handsome, I have to believe it,” Jack means for it to come out joking but it makes Sammy frown.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sammy asks, forehead creasing. “I’ve just spent the past five minutes telling you that.”

“I - I don't know,” Jack says, halting, finding it difficult to swallow. “I - forget I said anything.”

“No, what -” Sammy stops himself, and his hand leaves Jack’s shoulder. Jack’s left staring at the place where he can still feel the imprint. “Never mind. You should go -”

“I’m not going,” Jack says a little too quickly, and Sammy looks twice as terrified as Jack feels. “I meant…”

What did Jack mean?

“You really think I’m handsome,” Jack repeats, and he manages to swallow, but his mouth has gone dry. 

“I’d have to be blind not to,” Sammy says, eyes wide, blinking more than once in a row. “Jack, seriously, what’s this about?”

Jack still doesn’t know. 

“I mean,” Jack says, too slowly this time, far too fucking slowly, and he knows how it’s gonna sound, “you think I’m handsome.”

Sammy seems to get it that time, if his mouth falling open just slightly is anything to go by. Not that Jack  _ gets it  _ or anything, his brain having difficulty keeping up with his mouth right now. 

“Yeah,” Sammy breathes, carefully, restrainedly. That’s what they always are, Jack realizes in that moment. Restrained. Every one of his movements around Sammy has always been restrained. 

“Oh,” Jack says, feeling lightheaded, but not in a bad way. “Okay. Good.”

“It’s good that I think you’re handsome?” Sammy says, huffing out the smallest laugh. 

“It makes what I’m gonna do next much less awkward,” Jack says, stepping into Sammy’s personal space. Sammy’s staring at him like he’s never seen him before. Jack can only imagine what he looks like right now. 

“I -” Something painful lurches in Jack’s chest when he thinks of the risk he’s taking, Jack never takes risks like this, and he starts babbling without thinking. “God, Sammy, you’re my best friend, I don’t wanna wreck anything -”

“You won’t,” Sammy says, so quickly Jack barely hears it the first time. “You won’t, I promise.”

Jack isn’t sure which of them reaches out a hand first, but their fingers are entangled in the next second.

It gets less bothersome after that, when the girls on the top floor of the station hit on him over their lunch break. It doesn’t make him feel quite so sick, he can even laugh at it sometimes. Not in the moment, but when Sammy starts making fun of him later.

“I wish it bothered you more,” Jack tells Sammy over breakfast, leaning over his shoulder and into his personal space, for no reason at all other than that he wants to, “when people hit on me.”

“You want me to be jealous?” Sammy snorts and Jack holds him tighter, fitting his chin into the crook of Sammy’s neck. 

“A little,” Jack admits.

“If I was jealous every time someone hit on you, I’d literally never have any time for anything else,” Sammy says it like a joke but it makes Jack loosen his grip, head over to the fridge to get out the strawberries. Sammy frowns at him when he gets back to the table. “Jack. It doesn’t bother me. If you flirted  _ back _ , I promise I’d be in a blind rage of endless jealousy for the rest of eternity. Dramatic enough for you?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, hiding a grin. “I’d be jealous as hell if someone hit on you.”

“Good thing no one is then,” Sammy rolls his eyes.

“Why shouldn’t they?” Jack says. “You’re way better looking than me.”

Sammy’s eyes crinkle as he laughs.

“What?” Jack asks. 

“I’m sorry, I just heard you say that I’m more attractive than you are, which has never been true for a single day of our lives,” Sammy says, and it bothers Jack how unbothered Sammy is as he says it, like a fact.

“No,” Jack says, reaching across the table to take Sammy’s hand. “No, you’re - God, I think my chest gets tighter every time I see you.”

“Cause you love me,” Sammy says it with confidence, even if he starts blushing a second later. Jack blushes, too. It’s still new, saying that out loud. “You’re blinded by love. You’re objectively the hottest person in this room.  _ All  _ rooms.”

“ _ You’re  _ blinded by love,” Jack shoots back.  “I mean - shit, babe - everything about you just - just lights up. I think you’re so ...I always have.”

“We’re getting very sappy for seven in the morning,” Sammy’s smile is gentle and a little embarrassed, and Jack can tell he made Sammy happy by saying that. 

Jack can’t help but lean across the table to kiss him, and Sammy laughs into his mouth.

It’s quiet and easy, for the most part, until they’re back in California, until they’re more popular than Jack could’ve ever imagined, more popular than he can bear. Fans. Events. National syndication. 

Jack knows it’s worth it, knows that it’s what they’ve worked for all their careers. There’s something romantic about it too, knowing how many sacrifices he can make for Sammy, knowing that Sammy’s making the same sacrifices for him, that they’re so committed to this, to each other, that they’re going through all this shit.

It’s worth it when Jack’s brushing his teeth in the morning, after Sammy coaxes him out of bed with a promise of fresh coffee, and Sammy can’t pass Jack in the bathroom without hooking his arms around Jack’s waist. 

“Thought we were gonna be late,” Jack laughs when Sammy starts kissing the back of Jack’s neck ten minutes before they have to leave for work. 

“Sorry,” Sammy says, only half sounding it. He stops kissing Jack, but he buries his nose in Jack’s t-shirt, breathing deeply. “You look so handsome right now. Can’t help it. Not gonna get to stare at you all day, gotta get it out of my system.” 

Jack turns so he can kiss Sammy properly, get him to make that happy sound Sammy makes into his mouth when Jack kisses him. Jack likes when Sammy calls him handsome, because Sammy means it. He loves Jack. It’s not empty coming from him like it is everyone else. 

Since they can’t say that kind of thing at work, Jack lets them be late that day. It’s ten minutes less of pretending. 

Jack can pretend to be straight. He’s done it all his life. He knows how to do it. He knows how to turn the parts of his brain off. He knows the Rules. He can follow the Rules, can follow them even better than Sammy, who gets anxious and shaky if he fucks one up. Jack can cover everything up more smoothly. It’s just high school. He just has to pretend to be the guy he was in high school in order to survive here. 

It’s easier than he expects. He knows who he was at sixteen. He knows the kind of guys he hung out with, and they’re all here in the station, an overgrown football team.

Jack can pretend. He’s good at it. 

Sometimes it gets hard to turn off, and that’s when things get rough, but the bad days end with an apology and a kiss and curling up together and breathing in time with one other as they fall asleep. They don’t ever spend nights apart. There’s a house. There’s a cat. There’s a ring. More than Jack could’ve ever dreamed of, even if in some ways, their careers are one giant, hanging caveat.

Jack knows they can’t have both forever, he knows which one he’s willing to give up, and it’s not Sammy.

Giving up doesn’t end up being a part of the equation. Jack loses them both anyway, and barely knows how it happened. All he knows is that suddenly everything is gone, it’s dark, and he’s suffocating. 

It’s over five years later until he can even think about anything but pain again. 

And somehow, against all the odds, he still has Sammy. He hasn’t lost Sammy. He should have but he didn’t.

He wakes up screaming half the time, and Sammy’s always there, pulling him close, whispering memories that connect Jack to the here and now. After so long of being not here and not now, Jack sometimes can’t handle the gentleness.

Jack has three diagonal scars across his face that he thinks happened when a hole ripped open between the worlds. It’s why he thinks the scars are more psychological than physical. Whenever the bruises on his body disappear, more just appear in their place. He has to work to keep any weight on. He throws up half of what he eats. And yet Sammy’s always there, gentle hands and eyes and voice and  _ everything.  _

In the beginning, it’s too much to take. But then there’s the town, this town that Jack disappeared himself into that knows him without him having to say a word. That knows Sammy so intimately that they know Jack too, somehow. 

Jack’s never been seen before. Not like this.

“I’m glad I’m not handsome anymore,” Jack says suddenly, in their apartment, as Sammy makes dinner and Jack closes his eyes because sometimes light is overwhelming. He can’t gauge Sammy’s reaction, but feels his fiance come to sit next to him on the couch. 

“The hell are you talking about,” Sammy says, voice disgruntled, but he’s still overwhelmingly soft and gentle as he rests his head in the crook of Jack’s shoulder. “The scars? I like them.”

Jack feels a calloused thumb run across his cheek.

“You’re blinded by love,” Jack reminds him with a laugh. “That’s not what I mean. I mean - attractive to other people who aren’t you.”

“Have you talked to Ben recently?” Sammy asks, snorting. “I promise he can tell you how attractive you are. The scars add to the appeal, I think, they make you look all rough and dangerous.”

“Naturally,” Jack says, opening his eyes just to roll them, “can’t even escape the curse after five years in a nightmare world.”

Sammy sits up fully when he sees that Jack’s eyes are open, and silently asks his question with wide eyes.

“I just like that - that any attention I get is because of who I am,” Jack explains slowly. “People want to get to know me. They don’t wanna - flirt. They don’t have those expectations."

“That’s not the scars,” Sammy declares without a second’s hesitation. “That’s...well...that they know that you’re with me. Back then, it wasn’t just that you were pretty - though you  _ are  _ \- it was that we never told anyone. It’s not a secret anymore, which I hated at first, when you weren’t here, but now that you are - we don’t have to hide anymore. No girl in King Falls is ever gonna fall over her face for you because she knows that I’m here. Archie Simmons, on the other hand, could flirt with a cardboard box, so I’m sure once you meet him…”

Sammy smiles, bright and wide, he looks like he’s a kid again even though it’s been almost twenty years since they met. Jack still can’t quite believe that sometimes, and it’s the worst thing about missing so much time, that there’s so much of Sammy’s life that he lived without Jack.

But here in King Falls, they could have plenty of moments they never would’ve had a chance at in their old lives. Jack has to think that it’s worth it, that it’s an even trade to have a community, to have people around that Sammy loves like Ben and Emily. 

“You’re still handsome, is what I’m trying to say,” Sammy says, smile going gentler. “Sorry to say you can never truly escape it.”

“Eye of the beholder and all that,” Jack justifies, but Sammy just rolls his eyes and leans in to kiss him.

Jack still thinks he’s wrong, but he’s grateful for the sentiment. Sammy’s opinion on the matter is the only one that counts anyway.


End file.
